Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Madam Chair. This project has a long history and some of the initial numbers were very basic estimates. Over time we’ve used two separate consultants as well as the expertise within the Department of Transportation to refine the estimate to the point where it is today. Part of the upfront sunk costs that we talked about, the millions that we put into it, was to do that so that we could make the most informed decision possible. So we’ve had two consulting firms and the Department of Transportation separately looking at this to help us refine the numbers.

I believe in the risk matrix there is political risk that has been identified. Putting this into plain language, I don’t know if it’s necessarily a political risk. The Members asked for a plain language summary. We’ve provided it to them, and we’ve indicated, as well the Minister committed that we would table this in the House tomorrow.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Mike Aumond, deputy minister of Finance; Mr. Russ Neudorf, deputy minister of Transportation; Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary of the FMB. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member sharing her point of view and her assessment of the circumstances related to this particular project. We are elected in this Assembly to make choices when we are presented with information and it’s time to move on a project like this. That is our challenge here today, and I appreciate that it’s caused some angst with some of the Members.

At the end of the day I want to as well assure the Member that my intention was not to offend her. I was making an observation, and if I have offended her, I apologize. That was not my intent. Having said that, I...

Thank you. Madam Chair. We’ve had, over the years, federal investments through the Build Canada funding, if that’s what the Member is referring to, where we’ve taken full advantage of the cost-shared dollars. As a very specific example, there are no really large projects that come to mind, but with all the projects, we literally put… No, actually, over three years we’ve put a billion dollars of infrastructure in the last government on the ground, combined with our dollars and the federal dollars taking full advantage of all those dollars as we were fighting off the impacts of the huge economic...

Thank you. We should be clear that this risk matrix is an evolving living document that, as we conclude all the work and do all the geotechnical, it will be amended. There was work being done on the plain language summary. The government, the department was not deaf to the entreaties of the Member, so we now have it before us in addition to the document that was given in December.

The way we do business for the most part in this Assembly, that I recollect, with committee is we share during the budget process and planning process all sorts of information because we’re a consensus government. We...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m here to present Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 3, 2012-2013. This document provides for an increase of $11.390 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2012-2013 fiscal year. Major items in this supplementary estimate include:

$1 million to report a special warrant approved on December 14, 2012, for the Department of Transportation to complete reconstruction of the Nahanni Butte access road that was damaged during the flood in June 2012;

a transfer of $5.3 million from operations expenditures for the Department of Transportation...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We’re doing work across the Northwest Territories as it pertains to renewable energy. In the Beaufort-Delta, we’re looking at helping Inuvik deal with their gas situation, and one of the more immediate focuses is on the potential of liquid natural gas. At the same time, we are still examining the opportunities that exist at Storm Hills between Inuvik and Tuk as it pertains to some options and potential for some world-class wind development there. Those are two areas that we’re looking at, where you would be able to run lines to Tuk once the road is in. The other thing...

Thank you. There are no glaciers up there that I’m aware of. The reason we know what we do is because we’ve taken the time and we’ve spent some good, wisely invested money up front to do the estimating. We’ve started way back, many years ago, with a very rough estimate, and we’ve finalized it and fine-tuned it to the point where we came forward with confidence that we could do it for $299 million. So we spent $12 million getting ready to make that determination.

Yes.